(First semester—even years/3 credits)
A study of how early African-American literary traditions have been formed not only by slavery, but also by community, geography, orality, politics and literature itself. Works may include slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, as well as 19th century fiction by Harriet Wilson, Frances Harper, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Chesnutt.